The true story of Gilad Shalit

After more than five years in captivity, Israel and Hamas inked a landmark deal which will see the 25-year-old soldier, Gilad Shalit's freed within days in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel's Prisoner swap fills the airways. Arguments are made for and against; A stream of words flows endlessly even before the swap has occurred.

Our tour group is far away from all that noise. We are climbing up Masada, an ancient desert fortress situated on top of an enormous, isolated rock engulfed by the silence of the desert.

As our tour group arrives at the top, we spot, between the stony ruins, a plank of soldiers shouting in-sync. "Masada shall never again fall!". It is an oath made by every combat soldier in Israel.

After Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70, the Great Revolt ended-except for the surviving Zealots, who fled Jerusalem to the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea. There, they held out for three years. As the Romans succeeded breaching Masada's walls, Elazar ben Yair, the Zealots’ leader, decided that all the Jewish defenders should commit suicide.

Elazar preached; "I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom."

This speech and the Masada story recorded by the first century historian Flavius Josephus, became a symbol of the conviction that it is preferable to fight to the end rather than to surrender and acquiesce to the loss of independent statehood.
Jewish tradition largely ignored this story until recent times. The reason may be that Jewish law strictly forbids suicide and that Jewish tradition sanctifies life rather than death.

Announcing the Government decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted the Talmud (Jewish law). "Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world".

Netanyaho conveniently skipped the first portion of the Talmudic verse "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world." To save one life, Israel has taken a grave risk on others. The agreement frees murders such as Ibrahim Jundiya, who dispatched a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem bus in 2002. Eleven bus passengers were murdered in the bombing , Fadi Muhammad al-Jabaa who plotted the suicide bomb attack on a Haifa bus in 2003, in which 17 passengers were murdered, Maedh Abu Sharakh, also convicted of plotting the Haifa bus bombing. Mazen Muhammad Faqha, who plotted the 2002 suicide bus bombing near Safed, in which nine passengers were murdered and forty injured, Tamimi Ahlam, the Palestinian female Hamas terrorist convicted of aiding and abetting the suicide bomber who murdered 15 civilians and injured 140 in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing and Abd al-Aziz Salaha, who in 2001 took part in the murder of two IDF soldiers who mistakenly drove into Ramallah. Salaha was caught on camera holding out hands covered in blood after beating one of the soldiers to death.
To this Hamas leadership says: "We welcome our heroes that are returning from the occupation's jails."
The price Israel is paying is painful and controversial. Even amongst the bereaved families of terror victims there is no consensus. But the majority of Israelis support this deal. This controversy and its conclusion are the real story of Gilad Shalit. A story that is beyond one soldier, or one family. It is the story of a nation that faced with surrounding enemies, and the imminent threat of extinction seeks the moral path.

I am grateful to be living in a country where we discuss such important questions of ethics and values. Where even one soldier jailed for 5 years is not forgotten. Where we make choices based on our moral stance and not our interests alone. Where one life is sanctified to such overwhelming extents that a deal like this could be brokered and supported.

I believe that this is our strength, our fortress in this hostile region. So long as we are true to our values and heritage Masada will never again fall!